Professional Development

Professional Development - New Opportunities

Online courses and professional development

Summer provides the perfect opportunity to meet other educators and develop your professional learning network--either from the comfort of your own home, or out and about.

Too tired or comfortable to leave your bed? Hourlong Twitter chats offer the opportunity to meet other educators, share stories, and gather edtech tools for future use in the classroom--from any device. In fact, educator Jerry Blumengarten provides his Weekly Twitter Chat Times list to help out fellow teachers, Monday through Sunday. Available all summer, free.

Twitter isn’t the only online-resource. In fact, there are hundreds of online courses and tutorials. Check out the edtech organizations in our Professional Development Remix guide for personalized PD and more. Both free and paid summer opportunities are also available from the likes of Coursera, local schools/universities, and edtech sites. Here are some examples:

iPad Tech Training for Teachers: This free iTunes course, developed by Cathedral Catholic High School, contains tutorials for teachers using iPads in a 1:1 environment. Available at any time, free.
Blogs and Social Media for Teachers and School Leaders: This webinar will help you learn how to use blogs and social media (Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and more) to enhance communication between school and home. Runs five weeks from July to August, $147/participant.

And then, there’s always the “generate your own online PD” idea! Alice Keeler, Google fan and edu-blogger, suggests hosting a Google Classroom Summer Edtech Challenge with your PLC or district, where a designated leader issues challenges out to participants to use Google Classroom in fun and creative ways over the summer.

In-person networking and PD

Being on the computer by yourself might get old. In that case, if you want to meet educators face-to-face, try one of the following in-person PD events:

First up, the premiere example is EdCamp (full schedule of EdCamps here), a movement that’s gained a massive following over the past several years. These free “unconferences” break the rules of traditional professional development, and bring together educators from varying walks of life to create the rules and discuss, well, exactly whatever they want to discuss. According to the official schedule, there are more than 45 scheduled EdCamps between June 18 and August 31st. Reserve your spot today--or throw your own EdCamp! Run all summer, free.

EdCamps aren’t the only live networking opportunities for edtech. Universities, tech-savvy schools, and local nonprofit or blogging organizations are holding a slew of in-person edtech events this summer. Here are a couple of our favorites:

ISTE Unplugged: Join hundreds of educators interested in social media, technology, teaching, and learning to build and participate in "unplugged"-style activities sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education conference. Atlanta, June 26-June 29, free.
EdTech Teacher Summer Workshops: EdTechTeacher hosts edtech 1-2 week how-to sessions with topics like iPad use, becoming a Google expert, and more. Various cities (Atlanta, Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, Chicago, Los Angeles), Run all summer, $595-745/workshop.